Best Truck for New Camper?

[Jimster]

I need help choosing a truck for a new camper. My wife and I have narrowed our selection of a camper down to one with a wet weight of 4368 lbs or another with a wet weight of 4774 lbs. We want a 4x4 truck with a crew cab and would prefer SRW, and recently rented a Ford SuperDuty F350 with the lighter camper in Canada and it worked great for traveling the Demptser Highway and some pretty gnarly B.C. forest roads. Unfortunately, the Ford’s payload rating is 3800 lbs, suggesting that the truck we rented was overloaded with our camper.

Chevrolet’s 4x4 Silverado HD 3500 diesel’s payload is 4080 lbs, and Dodge’s Ram 3500 diesel’s payload is 4350 lbs.

How important is a truck’s GRVW and payload rating and what recommendation would you give us for a truck to haul the camper we want to buy and use boondocking and traveling the US and Canada? Should we look at DRWs rather than SRWs?

Thanks for your good advice to a newbie!

[Steve_in_29]

OP, something that needs to be considered with the SRW/DRW choice is how much will you be using the truck with the camper loaded? Also where are you planning on taking it?

If you will be mostly running empty throughout the year then a SRW (suitably beefed up) might fit the bill better. If you will be doing extensive traveling with the camper the nod goes to the DRW, UNLESS you plan on heading down lots of Forest Service type trails to remote campsites in which case the beefed up SRW would work better.

[Steve_in_29]

daily double wrote:
Camper pkg. should give you what you want, suspension alt. etc.

On Fords at least, the Camper Pkg does not include the second alternator nor I believe the heavier duty alternator.

The Snow Plow Prep does include the strongest front springs and the heavier duty SINGLE alternator.

[kohldad]

it took a fair amount of driving with a single "heavy-duty" alternator to fully charge our camper batteries after several days of usage and little driving.

This isn't an issue with the alternator but an issue with the small stock wiring, usually only #10 for power circuit to the connector. You can alleviate this by putting in your own wiring and heavy duty connector for a real charge circuit.

Did this on my Ram with #2 and the most I have seen is about 20A into the battery while providing another 11A to the fridge on DC.

Understand about the electric-shift in a package. On my Ram the only way to get manual is with the bottom trim level and we wanted some features offered in one trim level up so made the compromise. The Ram takes about 10 seconds to shift which would be a long time once you start sliding. Loved the old Dodge with manual shift as I could have it engaged in about a second.

[Steve_in_29]

Jimster wrote:
allygerry: I have a Jeep with manual 4X4, which I use a lot; I didn't know that manual 4x4 selection was an option on the F350 - assumed the shift-on-the-fly was part of one of the option packages. Thanks also for your suggestion on the second alternator; we were surprised during our rental experience of a F350 and Adventurer 86SBS that it took a fair amount of driving with a single "heavy-duty" alternator to fully charge our camper batteries after several days of usage and little driving.

Unless something has changed, the stock second alternator is not set-up to charge on its own on a secondary circuit. The computer controls both alternators and only kicks in the second when the load demands.

I have had the Shift-on-the-Fly setup on all three of my Super Duties and have been very satisfied with it. With the hubs set to auto you have the ability to QUICKLY throw it into 4WD if the situation demands. Such as suddenly finding yourself in soft sand or mud without having to stop to lock in the hubs (stopping sometimes means you can't get going again without lots of work). To give a bit of perspective, I am a hardcore off-roader in my Early Bronco, running trails up to and including the Hammers and have also wheeled the SuperDuty several times as well.

I didn't dig very much but it appears that once you get to a certain trim level with Fords the Shift-on-the-Fly becomes mandatory.

Op while I agree that your desired camper is probably best served by a DRW, Ford offers many GVWR/payloads packages and the max payload listed for an 2016 F350 SRW CC 4x4 is in the 11300/4270 package. Throwing this out there so that people know to check the payload of the actual truck they want instead of simply thinking there is only one across the line up.

[Jimster]

allygerry: I have a Jeep with manual 4X4, which I use a lot; I didn't know that manual 4x4 selection was an option on the F350 - assumed the shift-on-the-fly was part of one of the option packages. Thanks also for your suggestion on the second alternator; we were surprised during our rental experience of a F350 and Adventurer 86SBS that it took a fair amount of driving with a single "heavy-duty" alternator to fully charge our camper batteries after several days of usage and little driving.

[Jimster]

kohldad: The Shift-on-the-fly option is part of one of the option packages for a 4X4 DRW F350 -- can't figure out which one. We used it on our 4X4 F350 XLT SRW rental for 3 weeks, and it worked fine for us in some interesting mud and funky back-country Canadian forest roads. I'll check on this feature when I talk to a dealer. Thanks for raising the question.

[allygerry]

Definitely the dually 4x4 with the manual 4x4 floor shift no automatic shift on the fly 4x4. Had a Ford work truck that had an auxiliary alternator for charging the extra batteries to power an inverter to run 110 volt tools. That would really charge the TC batteries while driving. It's your money do what feels right for you however it's a rather large chuck of change so try to get it right without having to do too many mods to make it work.

[daily_double]

Camper pkg. should give you what you want, suspension alt. etc.

[kohldad]

Curious as why you want electronic 4x4 shift? That was the only option I didn't want on my truck that I really didn't have a choice over. It is slower to shift and something else to go wrong.

[Jimster]

Thanks ThreeBigFords for the note about the wide-axle option for F350s; I hadn't seen it on Ford's Build sheet but will ask about it.

Any other options I should look at? Heavy duty front suspension, Camper package, extra heavy-duty alternator, skid plates, 4x4 Electronic Shift-on-the-fly, and 3.73 Limited Slip axle ratio are on my build sheet for a 4X4 F350 Lariat DRW crew cab with long bed and 6.7L Diesel. This combination gives me a payload of 5,720 lbs.

[jefe_4x4]

Very thoughtful replies here. You cannot buy the bona fide experience of those who posted above. Almost everyone is bidding you escape the "Incrementalism".
Incrementalism is a term I pasted on Jeep upgrades following the, "Jeeps are built, not bought" school of thinking. If it's your hobby, and you want to prove it can be done, then by all means get there little by little. If you want to get from alpha to omega in one pop, the highest load rated, nay, overrated dually is the one. Now that I'm out of the Jeep Biz and maybe...wiser, my advice is as others have suggested: purchase the truck that will carry the load safely, without all those costly and time consuming in-between steps.
jefe

[SoCalDesertRid1]

Hooray! for the dually! 😛

[Yukoners]

Good decision to go DRW after all that unanimous advice:)...

[Bedlam]

Although I was able to haul my AF811 on a F250 and still tow a big trailer, I had to upgrade suspension and wheels to do it safely. We're going to a bigger TC soon, so I have upgraded my truck to a large DRW. Now it handles the same load stock without any modifications until we get that heavier TC.

If you already have reliable SRW that you want to keep, there are options to comfortably carry a 2-ton TC. If you do not have the truck yet, you are better off starting with a DRW and making any minor adjustments rather than major.

[Threebigfords]

Since you're opting for the dually, do yourself a favor and test drive an F350 DRW with the wide track front axle option. (standard on an f450 but those are hard to find)

Then compare the other trucks. The turning radius improvement will make you completely forget your driving a dually.